The Middle of Adventure's Such a Perfect Place to Start
by littledaybreaker
Summary: In which Alex and Piper make each other a promise they actually keep. Set in the future, post-release for both of them, and exploring the concept of a new beginning.


Author's note: a lot of the time I'm inspired by a particular piece of music to write (actually, most of the time), and whatever little bit of that piece of music I was inspired by becomes the central focus of the story. But in this case it just kind of developed itself.

This could be seen as a companion piece to _She Wants To Know, _picking up exactly where _She Wants To Know _left off, but it also stands just fine on its own, especially since it more closely follows the episodic canon. Sort of, considering most of it takes place in the future.

Title and epigraph are both from Arctic Monkeys' "505" which is going right next to "She Wants to Know" and "Take Me to Church" on my Alex and Piper playlist. Oh, and the book quoted by Alex in the beginning is "I Know This Much Is True" by Wally Lamb.

_I crumble completely when you cry_

_It seems like once again you've had to greet me with goodbye_

_I'm always just about to go and spoil the surprise, take my hands off of your eyes too soon_

~Arctic Monkeys, "505"

It felt, simultaneously, like a gift and a death sentence.

_I want you to come, _she had wanted to say. _I'll meet you at the gates in six months. _Just to let her know that she still loved her. That she was wanted. So in a way, this didn't feel all that much different from what Alex had planned all along, but on the other hand, it felt like a betrayal-a deserved one, but a betrayal nonetheless. It felt like Piper was punishing her for having tried, as she'd always tried, to survive.

Whatever Piper's intentions had been, it didn't exactly matter, because now she was standing in the hall at Litchfield in those stupid orange scrubs that made her feel like the new kid all over again, like the little girl in BOGO shoes she had once been, and she had to swallow hard against the onslaught of tears. She was _not _going to cry.

Nicky came first, with all the stuff she could possibly need, and hugged her fiercely, assailing her with the goings on at the prison since her release. (the short version: shit had gotten real and was probably going to continue to get real for the foreseeable future) Alex listened half heartedly and hugged her back while looking over Nicky's shoulder.

Piper was standing about 10 feet away, pretending not to watch, hip cocked against the doorway like the queen of the prison. Alex had never hated her more and had somehow never been more attracted to her. But she didn't come over to say hello, and Alex was starting to feel like BOGO again, so she swallowed back her tears (again) and carried her little hoard of stuff back to her bunk.

There was a little stack of books on the bed, most of them new-their spines uncracked-and this time she couldn't even try to prevent her tears. It meant that not only had Piper been there-that Piper had thought of her-but it also meant that she had done this for her, had arranged for people on the outside to send her books. It made it impossible for Alex to hate her any longer. Maybe that had been Piper's prerogative, maybe it was her being manipulative, but somehow Alex couldn't bring herself to care.

She was 50 pages absorbed in one of the books, about a guy whose identical twin was schizophrenic, when Piper came and hovered in the doorway, saying nothing. Alex put her book down and looked at Piper over the top of her glasses.

"Do you like it?" Piper asked, a little shyly, and Alex nodded.

"Thank you for the books."

Piper hesitated, and it made Alex feel a little irritated-as if Piper had any reason to feel nervous.

But, Alex supposed, she did. There had to be an element of uncertainty to it-if she in any way doubted how much Alex loved her, of course she would be scared. But Alex couldn't even begin to quantify how much she loved Piper, didn't think there were words that had been invented for that kind of love, so she said, "come sit down."

Piper perched at the edge of the bed at first, still too skittish to speak, and Alex didn't have enough energy to keep a conversation afloat, so instead she picked up the book, shook out her bookmark, and started over, reading aloud. "On October 12, 1990, my identical twin brother, Thomas, entered the Three Rivers, Connecticut Public Library, retreated to one of the rear study carrels, and prayed that the sacrifice he was about to make would be deemed acceptable…"

She read and read and read until she was nearly caught up to where she had been, and closed the book, watching Piper carefully.

"I love you," she finally said, and then held her breath.

Piper said nothing, but she finally scooted closer, pressing her lips to Alex's.

As far as Alex was concerned, that kiss could have erased all 10 years of harm they had brought upon each other, could have been the first step of forgiveness, but when Piper finally-reluctantly-broke the kiss, the first words out of her mouth were "I'm sorry," and the rest came tumbling out in what seemed like one long sentence-she and Larry at the funerwedding, Larry and Polly, how much she'd missed Alex, the way she seemed to creep into all of her dreams, how she couldn't even stay angry, Larry, Larry, fucking _Larry. _

Alex listened quietly, held her tight and stroked her hair when she began to cry. "You're OK," she murmured. "I'm here." Once Piper was calmer, her breathing even and regular, it was Alex's turn. She was sorry, she said, for so many things. She was sorry for having pulled the trigger in the first place, she loved and valued Piper so much and if she hadn't been such a stupid fucking selfish person none of this would have happened. She was sorry for double crossing her, sorry for selling her out, for every sin of their previous lives. Once she got on a roll it was difficult to stop. She was apologizing for things that weren't even really relevant anymore, her brain vibrating with everything she needed to atone for. And somehow, once she ran out of things to atone for, she segued into how much she loved her and why, and by the time she ran out of things to say, they were both crying and Alex felt as though she was never going to be able to stop.

"I want things to be better," Piper said softly. "Prison is so weird, but...I want this to work, even after we're out."

Alex looked down at her hands. "Is that why you phoned?" she asked.

Piper nodded, almost imperceptibly.

Alex took a couple of deep, slow breaths. "You know I have seven years left, right?"

Another nod.

"Are you ready for that? Because I'm ready to make this work if you are, but my heart can't handle it if you bail on me, Pipes."

Piper held out her hand for Alex, met her gaze. "We've both fucked each other over and hurt each other and been assholes but all of this has made me realize that what I really want, for the rest of my life, is to be with you, no matter how hard it is."

Alex couldn't help the stupid smile on her face, couldn't keep herself from feeling like she could finally breathe, like the swirling darkness in her brain had lifted. Seven years was a long time, but she felt like somehow, everything was going to be okay.

Piper was released on a Thursday. Alex had the habit of losing track of days in here-she was no longer doing anything with them but working, reading, and devoting them to Piper-but she knew that Thursday was coming for weeks, so when the sun rose that day she awoke with a sinking feeling and Piper standing next to her bed with tears in her eyes.

"I hate Thursday," she announced.

Alex nodded silently, not trusting her voice, and Piper laid down beside her.

"I'm going to miss you so much," Alex said finally. "How am I going to live without you?"

"You have to," Piper said fiercely. "Seven years will go by fast but I couldn't survive a lifetime without you."

"You'll visit?" Alex was aware her voice sounded tiny and pathetic but she couldn't bring herself to be tough right then.

"All the time," Piper promised. "I won't hurt you again."

Alex was having a hard time believing that, but she knew she had no reason not to, so she nodded.

"I'll send you books," Piper was saying, "and when you're out of here I'll sneak you into the library again."

Alex smiled. "You remember that?"

"Of course I do."

"_I just have to grab something. I'll be two seconds."_

"_Hurry." Although, by Alex's calculation, given the fact that Piper seemed to run on her own time zone, their window of opportunity to make their dinner reservation was rapidly closing. _

"_Want to come? I have to go to the library at the school and get something from Emma." One of her former classmates, now a grad student._

_That piqued Alex's interest-she had been bothering Piper for months to take her to the library, and for months Piper had been telling her that the university library was for university students and alumni only and she wasn't going to violate the rules. If Alex wanted to go to the university library that bad, she could sign up for university courses. Which had been a thought if she wasn't already in over her head with this idiotic "business"-taking her money and enrolling in school and being a normal person for once in her life. But she'd already been threatened at gunpoint once and that was quite enough, thank you very much._

"_I thought you said that was for university students only," Alex said, smirking._

_Piper leaned up, kissed her hard, the way Alex always wanted her to but she never seemed to. "Rules," she said when she broke the kiss, "were made to be broken."_

_The library, from the inside, was somehow more majestic than from the outside. Alex had spent a lot of time contemplating the inside of this library, and now, safely inside, having been pulled in while the door hung open momentarily in Piper's wake, she stood with her eyes closed, breathing deeply._

"_I'll be right back," Piper said, kissing her on the cheek. "Have a look around."_

_Piper found her 45 minutes later, dinner reservations completely forgotten, sitting on the floor of the upper level under the steely grey light of the glass ceiling, completely absorbed in a child development book from the 1950s. She was so completely enraptured, in the zone, that she didn't look up when Piper took her picture, didn't look up until Piper sat down next to her and asked, "good book?"_

"_Hm," Alex replied, reluctantly closing the book. "We missed dinner," she said. _

_Piper kissed her gently, her arm sliding around Alex's waist. "I don't care," she said._

_Alex looked around, taking everything in and soaking it up. "Me either," she said, and for some reason, she began to cry._

After breakfast, Alex helped Piper sort through all of her things, laying claim to most of the books and the thick wool socks Rosa had left to her, carefully removing the pictures from the wall...the pictures.

"Do you still have that picture?" she asked suddenly.

"What picture?" Piper asked absently. She was explaining to Suzanne for approximately the 77th time why she could not have Piper's toothbrush.

"The one from the library. You took a picture of me in the university library. I-I never saw it. Do you still have it?"

There was no hesitation, Piper told Suzanne firmly that the toothbrush was going in the garbage, and picked up one of the books off the bed, flipping to the back dust jacket and removing something taped there, shyly handing it to Alex.

Alex studied it. She looked so young-she couldn't even remember being that young and it struck her exactly how old she felt now, how tired and dried up, looking at that girl with the whole world at her feet, about to waste it. She wanted to go find that girl in the glass-ceilinged library and tell her to take Piper's hand, to run and never look back. But what really struck her was the composition-there she was, surrounded by beautiful architecture, high arching windows and millions of books, floor-to-ceiling ancient bookcases full of more books than anyone could ever read in a hundred lifetimes-but what Piper had focused on was her, the intent expression on her face, her hair falling over her shoulder, her. It was a picture, Alex realized, taken by someone who was madly, passionately in love with their subject, and that was what made it so remarkable. She held the photo, regarding her 10-years-younger self, trying to wrap her brain around it, and then handed it back to Piper. "Do you promise you'll always love me that much?" she whispered, her arms wrapped tightly around Piper, face buried in her neck.

"I never stopped," Piper whispered back. "I never will."

She visited often at first, every chance she had, full of stories. Polly had gotten her a job as the manager of one of their other college friends' chocolate company, and there were always stories from there, plus the fact that Polly was pregnant _again_ ("Well, her and Larry didn't waste much time," Alex had remarked, one eyebrow cocked), and all the shit that brought. Alex hung onto those stories as though they were brilliant works of art. She'd been afraid that she was going to be upset about Piper's stories, jealous, but she found herself completely enraptured, trying to find her place in those stories, where she'd be when she finally got out.

Eventually the visits dwindled as business picked up and Piper's life went on even without Alex, but there were regular phone calls and every week, sometimes twice a week, without fail Piper sent her packages of books with love letters tucked inside, full of the same vibrant updates as her visits had been, mixed in with words of love and anticipation and how much she missed her. At first the lack of visits had made Alex anxious, made her feel like Piper was back to the way she had been before, abandoning her when she needed her, but eventually, the more packages arrived the more reassured she was. Piper might have been busy, but she was true to her word. Everything was going to be okay.

Eventually months turned to years, and the packages still came regularly, Piper's letters were still full of love and stories, their phone calls still ended the same way- "I love you so much, I'll see you soon, okay?"-and at some point Alex stopped having to convince herself every time Piper left that she'd come back, because apparently, for once, they were both on the same page.

Until, one day, with less than two years left on Alex's sentence-less than a year, the way they were talking, it sounded like she was going to be let out on good behavior-she and Piper sat down in their usual spots in the visiting area and Piper dropped a bomb. "I'm pregnant," she said.

Alex stared at her like she was an alien. "You-what?" She tried to take some deep breaths, tried not to jump to the worst case scenario that had jumped into her brain. No. No. No. No.

Piper reached for her hand, touched it just briefly enough that the CO wouldn't yell at them, and launched into her explanation-she was 38, the window of opportunity was closing more rapidly than she wanted to admit, she had started researching her options and chosen a donor, they'd never met, she'd had the procedure at the clinic, she hadn't wanted to bring it up to Alex because she thought it would cause Alex more pain than it would anything else, she was only six weeks along and she was really hoping that when Alex got out she'd want to do this together.

Alex considered this for long enough that Piper began to get anxious, tapping her foot and looking around at the mostly-unfamiliar faces.

_Good, _Alex thought, _let her fret. _

They hadn't even discussed children once Alex got out. She had celebrated (if you could call it that, having your birthday in prison) her 40th birthday the year before. And besides, she had never even held a baby, at least not as an adult, much less parented one. And besides that, she, unlike Piper, was a real criminal. Not a dangerous one, but a real criminal nonetheless.

Still, there had never been a shortage of visiting babies, and their giggles and pudgy little faces had always lifted her spirits more than the prescribed combination of pharmaceuticals ever had. Sure, they also screamed and cried and left a trail of bodily fluids wherever they went, but maybe that wasn't so bad when they were yours, or half yours, or they belonged to the person who happened to be the love of your life. Although Alex had a tiny, sneaking suspicion that was part of Piper's plan-that she knew that Alex would say yes because she knew Alex wouldn't want to leave her-it was fucking working and Alex was completely powerless to stop it. "This is a terrible idea," she said finally, "but I made you a promise and I'm trying to make it a point to keep my promises."

Piper looked so relieved that Alex thought for a moment that she might burst into tears, and she gave Alex's hand a squeeze. She started rambling about how she was having an ultrasound next week and she'd come visit Alex and bring her a picture, and maybe she could hang it by her bed, and she hoped it was a boy because boys seemed easier, Finn was so laid back and chill...then, it seemed in an instant she was gone again, leaving Alex alone in the visiting room wondering what the fuck she had just gotten herself into.

The news of the baby had caused Piper's visits to pick up again, but the closer and closer her due date came, the more and more anxious Alex became about the whole thing. It was a _terrible _idea-maybe it was fine for Piper to do, because Piper had life skills other than trafficking drugs, and Piper had people to back her up and people to love her, but there was no way Alex could do it, no way she could seamlessly insert herself into the life that Piper had designed for herself. It had all been a way to get rid of Alex once she was on the outside, a way to slowly let her down and abandon her again.

But then again, maybe not. Maybe this was the karma Alex had been waiting for-or rather, expecting. Maybe this was her divine punishment for having manipulated and shoved Piper around so many times, her divine punishment for being such a shitty human being, and maybe, by the same token, it was a chance for her to redeem herself. To have the normal life she'd so desperately craved for as long as she could remember. Maybe it was too late to go to college, too late to find that girl she'd left in the university library and tell her to save herself, maybe it was too late to undo the mistakes of her past, but maybe it wasn't too late to start again.

"Vause, you have a visitor."

The CO's voice made Alex's head jerk up, startled. Piper's latest stack of books had arrived the day before with a letter explaining that she was just feeling too crappy and too extremely pregnant to make the drive, but that the next time she came she'd have a new little visitor too, so she wasn't expecting anyone.

Polly was standing nervously in the visitor's waiting room, fiddling with her wedding ring (she and Larry had gotten married the previous spring, after two kids together, according to Piper) and looking a little intimidated. She jumped when Alex said hi to her, and Alex couldn't contain her smirk. Polly had been the one who had sent her books when Piper was still inside, so she could have been _that _intimidated, but it was funny nonetheless to watch her act as though she might catch criminal activity just from being in proximity of it.

"What's up?" Alex asked once they sat down at a table, folding her arms across her chest and watching Polly. "Is Piper okay?" Her brain was already conjuring up every worst case scenario she could imagine, and it really needed to stop doing that _any time now_.

Polly nodded, a little smile crossing her face. "Trying to get ahold of you by phone is such a pain," she explained, "so I thought well, why not just do it in person, even though it's a _hell _of a drive and…" she flushed a little, realizing, correctly, that Alex probably didn't care. "Piper had her baby yesterday morning," she said, getting to the point. "A little girl, 7 pounds 5 ounces. She doesn't want me to tell you anything else until you meet her, and the guards wouldn't let me bring in a picture, but she's so cute. She looks like Piper. You're going to love her."

Strangely, Alex realized, she already did.

It took another month for Piper to come visit, and that month felt like an eternity. Her letters were shorter because she didn't have a lot of time and wasn't getting a lot of sleep, and even though she sent pictures of her-their-little tiny Winston Churchill-esque baby with funny ears and blonde hair that stuck straight up from her head, she didn't say much about her, and for some reason always refused to tell Alex her name, so when she finally did come, looking frazzled and exhausted but somehow still beautiful, beautiful enough to make Alex's heart ache, the first words out of Alex's mouth weren't "hello" or "it's good to see you" or "I love you", but "what's her name?!"

"I love you too," Piper said with a smirk that actually made Alex feel pretty proud, settling into the chair and adjusting the baby's hat so that Alex could see her face. She was cuter in real life, her wide blue eyes taking everything in, her face starting to fill out, more Chapman and less Churchill. "Do you want to hold her?" she asked.

"Uh." But even as Alex was shaking her head and trying to explain that the last time she held a baby was probably when she was ten, Piper was putting the baby in her arms, and Alex was cradling her little head, stroking her cheek, feeling the warm, sweet-smelling weight in the crook of her arm as if she'd been doing this her whole life.

"Alex, meet Diane Celeste. Diane Celeste...this is your other mommy."

_Diane. _Alex's breath caught and she looked from baby Diane to Piper and then back at baby Diane. "You-" she began, but she couldn't seem to finish her sentence.

"Like your mom," Piper explained. "I hope that's okay. I just looked at her and it felt _right_, but I wanted, I wanted to tell you in person…"

Alex looked down at Diane again, and Diane looked up at Alex, regarding her curiously, holding her gaze. "You are the most insane, impulsive person I've ever met," Alex said when she finally found her voice again, "and I feel like I should be mad at you for it, but damn it, Pipes, you make it so fucking hard to stay mad. I love you so much. I can't wait to come home."

Alex was released 10 months later, on a Thursday. When she woke up that morning and realized the date, it made her smile a little at the irony, remembering the last time she woke up knowing it was Thursday. How had six years passed since the day they'd stood in Piper's bunk and made their promises to each other? And how had they managed, through six years, to keep those promises? How could Piper have built herself a life with Alex still on the inside and still found a way to make Alex part of it, and how could Alex finally be leaving this place behind for good, to go join Piper in the real world? Six years seemed like a lifetime ago-nearly everything in the prison had changed, hardly anyone she and Piper had known together still remained, and yet, there they were. There was something to be said for keeping their promises.

Piper and Diane were sitting on the steps of their house when the van pulled up, let Alex out, and then drove away-her last link to the prison speeding off down the street and probably attracting the attention of every suburban housewife on the block. Diane, almost a year old, with little blonde pigtails sticking out of the sides of her head like TV antennae, bounced up and down and squealed in Piper's arms, holding her chunky arms out for Alex to pick her up. "Hi!" Alex said in a higher register than she had realized was possible to achieve before Diane was born, picking her up and giving her a hug, smothering her in kisses before setting her safely down on the lawn, standing in front of Piper with her arms crossed and a smile on her face. "Well," she said, "we did it."

Piper stepped forward, wrapping her arms around her, leaning up to give her a kiss. "We did," she said. "Are you ready for the rest of our lives?"

"God yeah," Alex replied. "Are you?"

"I don't think I've ever been more ready for anything."

"I have one more surprise for you." Piper stuck her head around the door to Diane's room, where Alex had spent the past two hours sitting in her rocking chair while Diane napped on her shoulder-she was surprisingly heavy for such a tiny human. "My friend Dale, he's the one who owns the chocolate shop, he understands how hard it is for prisoners to get jobs after they're released-we've been volunteering with this group to help other women find employment and education, too-but anyway, his brother Michael has some connections and, well, he pulled some strings and I think we have the perfect job for you, but they want you to go down there and see them for yourself."

"A job?" Alex's head was spinning. The sum total of her professional experience was selling drugs and doing laundry, and somehow she felt as though this job involved neither. "What kind of job…?"

"You'll see." Piper had a little, eager smile on her face, and in it Alex suddenly saw the girl she'd fallen in love with almost two decades before-could almost, for a second, believe that none of the past seventeen years had happened. "Are you ready? She can nap in the car."

"What are we doing here…?" Alex asked, taking Diane from Piper so that Piper could rummage around in her giant purse for the key card to the university library-"_I know Michael gave it to me, where the fuck is it."-_ There was no way she could have gotten a job _here_, no way in hell that anyone would want to hire her to be within 10 feet of a college campus, right?

"Aha!" Piper said triumphantly, swiping the card and waving Alex and Diane in.

Michael, a slight Asian man in his early 40s greeted them at the door, shaking Alex's hand and giving Piper a hug. Everything was the same, Alex noted, taking in her surroundings. There were more computers now, banks of them where there had previously only been one or two, and vending machines and new furniture, but the giant glass ceiling was still there, the floor to ceiling bookcases, the winding staircase, all exactly as they had been in her memory, as if they had gone back in time.

"...so if everything sounds good, we can have you start next week with training," Michael was saying, snapping Alex back into reality.

"I'm sorry, what?" Alex asked. "What did you just say?"

Michael chuckled. "We would like to offer you a position at the overnight reference desk," he said, "it's mainly just supervising the library and answering the rare question that comes up, pretty simple, but Piper told me you liked the library, and since the reference desk is upstairs, it makes for pretty good stargazing, if that's something you're interested in."

"_I'll learn_," Alex said, and then held out her hand. "I'll take it."

After all the paperwork was signed and Alex had asked Piper approximately a hundred times how she'd managed that, and Piper had just smiled and said "Listen, I have connections", and Alex had tried not to cry in front of the head librarian as she signed her name on the dotted line for her first real job at 42 years old, they walked upstairs, Alex holding Diane and Piper holding Alex's hand. Once they reached the landing, Alex closed her eyes and breathed deeply as she had all those years before, taking everything in, walking slowly to the middle of the library and standing there with Diane. "Your mom brought me up here a long time ago," Alex told her, "And I've never stopped thinking about it." It was almost surreal-she had dreamed about this so many years before and now, here she was, and it was almost as if everything that had happened in the 20 years since she'd stood in this spot last had been erased, as if someone had found those girls and told them to run, as if they'd never had to almost lose each other to find each other again. In all the hundreds of thousands of ways that she had imagined life with Piper on the outside, all the dreams she'd had of their life together, nothing could have ever come close to the way things happened in real life. Some promises, she knew now, were worth keeping.

Author's note II:

considering this ended up being 5000 (well, 4900) words, I decided to condense as much as I could to get to the point, so some details aren't 100% specifically correct for the sake of artistic license or something.

However, as the story was progressing I decided I wanted to preserve certain elements of actual Piper's life (having a child, for example, and the offhand reference to volunteering with women who were recently released) because they align with how I imagine her life after she got out of prison, so while I did still take some artistic license there, it was drawn from real life rather than television canon. :)


End file.
